Is this bine rot?

OK, so I'm just a little shy of harvest ATM, but noticed random leaves turning yellow, then brown and shriveled over a couple days. I looked closely at the bine itself and found a small area of it rotted around where it wraps around the twine. I pulled away some of what looked like a grainy growth, and there was a small larvae moving around. Looks almost like a nest of eggs of some sort.

Any ways, I'm unclear as to whether this was:

a. Rot and the insects went after it.
b. Insects went after it, it later rotted.
c. The bine itself got injured and both rot and insects set in.

A possible culprit for causing an injury is the white cord that I twisted with the twine. You can see this in the pic. My FIL insisted that I use that because it's made for vine-type plants. It looks like that very thin white line may have cut into the bine itself.

I have noticed this on both Sterling (two bines, toward the end) and now Cascade (one bine out of three).

Anyways, the infected bine is scheduled to be cut later this afternoon, with an early harvest. I'll cut away anything that looks like it might contribute to a spread of this menace, and if it continues to spread, I'll just cut everything back. I thought it would be better to know what was going on for future reference.

Thanks in advance.

The part of the bine that touches my rope is discolored but it has not effected the plant at all.

Thanks for such a quick reply.

Well, the main thing is that clump of growth... makes me wonder of the source... injury, rot, or insects? And which came first?

If the grainy material looks like sawdust it's probably larva poop (frass). I had some problems with European Corn Borer back in the 90's and it looked very similar although the entry point was more of just a hole rather than a large area like in your picture. Could be a similar type of insect. Good luck.

larva poop? I think you are right!!

I just cut down one bine and tried to save the hops on that bine. Here's a pic of what I found between the bine and the twine:



Without finding the actual specimen, I suppose it will be hard to pin down the culprit but does anyone out there want to give it a shot? I really don't know.

It took me 4 years. Hope you have better luck!

Do you live in a windy area??

This is a great book I have read this and used a lot if the info to grow my hops.

Well, we have a typhoon coming in... is that windy?

Actually, we get a fair amount of wind, but not a whole lot, except for the occasional typhoon. Wind would explain more exposure to insects, though. Good point.

Checked the book... a few pics of insects, but not much of the hops bines themselves when symptoms appear.

thanx again.

B-Hoppy said:

It took me 4 years. Hope you have better luck!

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4 years to find the culprit? Did you have these symptoms?

You know, I'm leaning towards a non-hop specific bugger here. And the indentation this thing left looks like an inverted moth cocoon. That probably doesn't help much.

Next year, I'll buy or find a couple mantis egg sacks and let 'em go.

The damage was identical except the entry point wasn't as big and was done between the leaf nodes as the entire length of the vine was hollowed out. I ended up finding all 4 stages (egg, larva, pupa and adult) and finally got it identified. Supposedly BT works pretty well against ECB so you first have to find out what is causing the damage before implementing a control strategy. In the mean time, have a beer!

The book has several herbal pesticides that won't harm the plant. If you have a lot of wind the twine can rub the vine raw. What kind of hops did you plant. It this your first time. Did you try more than one specimen. Have you sprayed the ground around them with bug killer. If its a flying inspect hang a bug zapper up. I actually have spiders that have built webs between my hops trellis and they have a done a good job at catching a lot of the insects.

Looks to me like the twine just trapped some debris between the twine and the bine, causing some mechanical damage. Mechanical damage leaves dead tissue which is fed upon by harmless saprophytes (stuff that eats on dead stuff), and is no cause for concern unless you see it on parts of the plants that were not damaged originally.

OK, so the damage may have been started with wind rubbing the twine, or more likely the white cord cutting into the bine.

The insect may be ECB, and BT works on it.

I have a lot of spiders making webs between twine/bine. I try not to get rid of those.

I noticed some more damage on the bine. When I cut it up, I noticed damage at the leaf nodes, like you mentioned. i'll take apart any other infected bines I find and try to identify the pest.

theredben- I'm pretty sure it's not debris between the line and bine, but an actual pest that lived inside the bine.

Now, once I find all this stuff, I need to look for the remedy or substitutes here in Japan and that does not sound fun. I like the idea of inoculating the soil with what I think was called beneficial nematodes or something along those lines.

In any case, I'll probably be harvesting most of the hops in about a week or so, so it's not so critical ATM, but I just want to be prepared for next year if these things come again. I'll also make sure these guys didn't burrow all the way into the root system.

Thanks for all your help!

OK, found the culprit in a "frass mass".



Looks like you were right, this may very well be ECB.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Corn_Borer

Thanks for your help.

My Cascades seem to be clear of these buggers now. Centennials were never touched.

The Sterling, however, is infected all up and down the bine. Slowly but surely different areas of the bine are shriveling up. It just started REALLY flowering, too. I know the best thing for bines is to let them dry out and have all the nutrients flow down into the crown to prepare for winter, but I'm thinking about just chopping the whole thing as far as is needed to rid myself of these guys and leaving the root crown for next year. Would it be detrimental to the plant? Will it hold out being cut so early? If I do cut it down, I guess a dose of organic material will help it prepare for hibernation.

I guess I'm more concerned about saving the plant and getting rid of these pests than I am getting a yield this year. They are all first year plants, so they don't yield much anyway.

BTW, I live in Japan. On the Wiki site, Asia is not listed for an area affected by ECB, but talking to my mother-in-law (local farmer), I found that it is a relatively new pest, and there are pesticides that if sprayed, will allow the plant to be harvested after only a day or two.

I think the Sterling is just too far gone, though.

WhoZiT said:

Would it be detrimental to the plant? Will it hold out being cut so early? If I do cut it down, I guess a dose of organic material will help it prepare for hibernation.

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You should be fine to cut back to the unaffected portion and just leave that grow until it dies back this Fall. Once they've been up and flying for a year or so they've got an excess of life stored up in the crown to overcome situations like this. Good luck.

B-Hoppy said:

You should be fine to cut back to the unaffected portion and just leave that grow until it dies back this Fall. Once they've been up and flying for a year or so they've got an excess of life stored up in the crown to overcome situations like this. Good luck.

Click to expand...

Thanx. It'll only leave 2-3 ft of bine, but I guess that's better than none. There some off shoots with flowers there. I may get some yield, but it's not a big deal if I don't.